Residence New York, New York Occupation Entrepreneur | Nationality American Alma mater Duke University | |
Born May 29, 1987 (age 29) ( 1987-05-29 ) Austin, Texas Profiles | ||
Kendall Dabaghi (born May 29, 1987) is an American entrepreneur and engineer. He has been named to Forbes 30 Under 30 as well as Business Insider's 100 Most Inspiring and Influential People in NYC Tech.
Contents
Most recently he was co-founder of A Plus (aplus.com), a digital media company devoted to delivering positive journalism to its viewers. In its first year, A Plus was named the fastest-growing website in comScore's Mobile Metrix database and ranked in the top 100 largest US websites according to Quantcast, before it was acquired by Chicken Soup for the Soul in 2016.
Early life
Dabaghi was born in Austin, Texas in 1987. He was a competitive tennis player at St. Stephen's Tennis Academy and Austin Tennis Academy, at one point ranking in the top 10 in Texas and finishing high school ranked close to the top 50 in Texas and top few hundred players nationally. He graduated from Anderson High School (Texas) in 2005, and in 2009 graduated from Duke University magna cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa. At Duke he served as Class President and co-chaired the Senior Gift Committee. Following graduation, Dabaghi worked at the management consultancy McKinsey & Company, where he specialized in technology and Big Data.
Fulbright Scholarship
From 2009 to 2010, Dabaghi researched the Mexican drug war and its effect on democracy in Mexico through a Fulbright scholarship. He guest-lectured on the topic at Harvard University and published a feature article in World Politics Review, "The Neglected Roots of Mexico's Drug War," which was later incorporated into an Amazon.com e-book.
ArmorHub
Dabaghi co-founded Gridtech Inc in 2011 to develop innovative software-as-a-service solutions for enterprises. In 2012, Gridtech Inc launched ArmorHub, a web security platform for small- and medium-businesses that would quickly scan their websites for application-level security vulnerabilities including SQL injection and cross-site scripting errors. ArmorHub was acquired by Spirent Communications, a publicly-traded telecommunications company based in the United Kingdom.
A Plus
In 2013, Dabaghi co-founded A Plus with Ashton Kutcher and Evan Beard to apply proprietary technology for creating, optimizing, and distributing content to the digital media industry. Through a combination of technical innovation and a commitment to positive journalism, the company grew within its first year of launch to 50 million monthly unique visitors and was named the fastest-growing website in comScore's Mobile Metrix database. The company raised $3.5 million from investors in 2015 and achieved $5-10 million in annual run-rate revenue before being acquired by Chicken Soup for the Soul in 2016.